https://jonathanmckay.com/tags/literary-fiction/Recent content in Literary-Fiction on Jonathan McKayHugoen-usSat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/the-lost-colony-artemis-fowl-%235/Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/the-lost-colony-artemis-fowl-%235/Infinitely better than the movie.https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/the-origin-of-species/Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/the-origin-of-species/This book will make you smarter. Regardless of evolution's implications in biology, its implications for politics and economics make this book worthhttps://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/catalina/Fri, 28 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/catalina/Vibes too Heavy I’m Tired What am I supposed to take away from this book? It delivers a heavy dose of atmosphere but withholds everything else. The plothttps://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/sea-of-tranquility/Fri, 31 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/sea-of-tranquility/Milquetoast Time Travel Sea of Tranquility reads like an extension of a Chiang short story—minus Chiang’s good-natured acceptance of the inexplicablehttps://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/one-day-everyone-will-have-always-been-against-this/Fri, 15 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/one-day-everyone-will-have-always-been-against-this/Are we the baddies? Rockets fall. Lie flat, open your mouth, blunt the shockwave. Witness empire up close—papers for bodies that were lives that werehttps://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/this-is-how-you-lose-the-time-war/Tue, 04 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/this-is-how-you-lose-the-time-war/This is not a book, it is a screen saver. Sure, manipulating causality could be clever, but in the end every world visited is intentionally left so vaguehttps://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/inheritor/Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/inheritor/<b> Tea Drinker </b> Reading Inheritor three years after the first two books, I had to reassemble Cherry’s political map from fragments. Like Bren, Ihttps://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/day-zero-sea-of-rust-%230/Sun, 18 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/day-zero-sea-of-rust-%230/A Predictable End... of the World Not nearly as interesting as Sea of Rust. Especially for those that have read Sea of Rust, there's little point in thishttps://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/nettle-bone/Mon, 04 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/nettle-bone/Somewhere between a fairy tale and a clothing brand.https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/carrie-soto-is-back/Sat, 29 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/carrie-soto-is-back/Inner Fictional Game of Tennis It's hard to exist on Goodreads without seeing Taylor Jenkins Reid. Reid takes the pacing of a blockbuster, and substituteshttps://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/assassins-quest-farseer-trilogy-%233/Tue, 30 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/assassins-quest-farseer-trilogy-%233/Some books that wander are lost After returning from the dead, our hero, Fitz, goes wandering. ... and wandering. ... and wandering. He checks voicemailhttps://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/dawn-xenogenesis-%231/Sun, 19 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/dawn-xenogenesis-%231/Aliens should be weird. Interesting concepts of how a superior biotech race could manipulate and control humans, even while trying to maintain ahttps://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/and-then-there-were-none/Thu, 13 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/and-then-there-were-none/Mechanical writing, heavily foreshadowed plot, and multiple povs made this book highly soporific. Only one character had the right motive, making thehttps://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/jade-legacy-the-green-bone-saga-%233/Sun, 03 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/jade-legacy-the-green-bone-saga-%233/4.5 stars. A fitting ending that perhaps drug the plot a little bit further than the apex, but overall the series was extremely satisfying.https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/a-master-of-djinn-dead-djinn-universe-%231/Sat, 07 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/a-master-of-djinn-dead-djinn-universe-%231/3.5 stars, great setting, solid writing. Somewhat disappointing characters and a predictable plot.https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/she-who-became-the-sun-the-radiant-emperor-%231/Wed, 23 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/she-who-became-the-sun-the-radiant-emperor-%231/surprisingly good, game of thrones + mulan + traitor baru thrown into one. Good setting.https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/long-walk-to-freedom/Mon, 14 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/long-walk-to-freedom/Took a bit to get started, but a worthwhile long walk of a book in the end.https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/black-water-sister/Tue, 02 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/black-water-sister/Offending the Culture Gods in Reassimilation A stressed lesbian medium fights gods, ghosts, gangsters, and grandmas in 21st century Penang. In a bookhttps://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/the-year-of-the-flood-maddaddam-%232/Tue, 10 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/the-year-of-the-flood-maddaddam-%232/End of the World was Boring The fall of man was multidimensional. Ancestral primates fell out of the trees, then they fell from plant eating to meathttps://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/becoming/Wed, 04 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/becoming/politics by a non politician who becomes a politician fed up with politics. good readhttps://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/the-light-of-all-that-falls-the-licanius-trilogy-%233/Mon, 19 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/the-light-of-all-that-falls-the-licanius-trilogy-%233/No Lasting Impression It's harder than expected to write a review of Islington after a few months. I certainly remember the main characters, but likehttps://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/the-chosen-and-the-beautiful/Sat, 05 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/the-chosen-and-the-beautiful/Origami Permutations on Wealth Origami was never about the finished product. For me, it was the act of folding, taking an inert shape and transforming ithttps://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/a-desolation-called-peace-teixcalaan-%232/Mon, 12 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/a-desolation-called-peace-teixcalaan-%232/36th book of 2021: Body Politic Everybody had politics, even if only some people had sex. Narratives of collective action and dissonance are so oftenhttps://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/oryx-and-crake-maddaddam-%231/Tue, 09 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/oryx-and-crake-maddaddam-%231/18th book of 2021: How the world ends. It’s not difficult to envision childhood trauma and sexual frustration as the shaper of global catastrophe. Afterhttps://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/house-of-suns/Tue, 02 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/house-of-suns/17th book of 2021: Sex, Politics, Apathy. I have a rule when it comes to scifi: if the main character starts talking esoteric politics while engaging inhttps://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/the-last-graduate-the-scholomance-%232/Sat, 19 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/the-last-graduate-the-scholomance-%232/Animal Farm levels of allegory about life-or-death instincts deployed in the pursuit of status, the willful blindness of the wealthy toward inequality ofhttps://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/rhythm-of-war-the-stormlight-archive-%234/Thu, 26 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/rhythm-of-war-the-stormlight-archive-%234/79th book of 2020: Rhythm of ‘body keeps score’, followed by the rhythm of bore. Too often in fantasy, the hero's journey consumes so much availablehttps://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/the-cold-millions/Sun, 22 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/the-cold-millions/76th book of 2020: Class struggle isn't new "What was it about these steep, western, water-locked cities, Seattle, Spokane, San Francisco? All three I’dhttps://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/a-deadly-education-the-scholomance-%231/Fri, 13 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/a-deadly-education-the-scholomance-%231/75th book of 2020: Lost in Calculations Read through this in one sitting, which was about as long as I think I would be able to suspend my disbelief. Thehttps://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/rendezvous-with-rama-rama-%231/Thu, 05 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/rendezvous-with-rama-rama-%231/72nd book of 2020 - Nice Escape. It’s November 3rd, as the American republic follows perilously close to last days of the Roman republic: a contestedhttps://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/japanese-death-poems/Mon, 24 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/japanese-death-poems/Empty-handed I entered the world Barefoot I leave it My coming, my going Two simple happenings That got entangled For each of us, the last day is cominghttps://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/a-canticle-for-leibowitz-st.-leibowitz-%231/Fri, 03 Jul 2020 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/a-canticle-for-leibowitz-st.-leibowitz-%231/A Canticle for Leibowitz follows the arc of a post-apocalypse humanity, through three story arcs: 1. Through the discovery of key artifacts during the newhttps://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/shorefall-the-founders-trilogy-%232/Mon, 08 Jun 2020 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/shorefall-the-founders-trilogy-%232/Shorefall was a James Bond film, set in the Foundryside universe. Start with a caper, introduce a cookie-cutter villain, then spend the next few dayshttps://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/the-way-of-kings-the-stormlight-archive-%231/Thu, 23 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/the-way-of-kings-the-stormlight-archive-%231/2025 Re-review Sometimes, a fragment of a book stays with you - like a song you can't get out of your head. That's what has happened with Sanderson'shttps://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/the-name-of-the-wind-the-kingkiller-chronicle-%231/Tue, 28 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/the-name-of-the-wind-the-kingkiller-chronicle-%231/7th book of 2020. A story about a boy who thinks he’s smarter than everybody else (check), who grew up with a traveling troop of nomads (carnival?), washttps://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/alphabet-squadron/Fri, 03 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/alphabet-squadron/2nd book of 2020 When I was a kid, the X-Wing series was perfect for my imagination. After devouring a few of the books, I could spend entire eveningshttps://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/the-priory-of-the-orange-tree-the-roots-of-chaos-%231/Sat, 28 Sep 2019 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/the-priory-of-the-orange-tree-the-roots-of-chaos-%231/59th book of 2019. I liked the two main characters Iad and Tane, didn't really like the secondary characters, and didn't like the plot. Throughout thehttps://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/a-memory-called-empire-teixcalaan-%231/Sun, 01 Sep 2019 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/a-memory-called-empire-teixcalaan-%231/54th book of 2019 -- I enjoyed it. It felt like a sci-fi version of bureaucratic fiction (i.e. 驻京办主任) where the grinding gears of tradition and successionhttps://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/to-kill-a-mockingbird/Sat, 08 Jun 2019 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/to-kill-a-mockingbird/A great American novel I missed when too busy reading Dragonlance growing up, now it's time to catch up. For the first 2/3 of the book, I wasn't sure whathttps://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/the-left-hand-of-darkness/Tue, 02 Apr 2019 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/the-left-hand-of-darkness/A book more of ideas than plot, I liked the premise and enjoyed Le Guin's curious explorations of gender (akin to Ancillary Mercy) rather thanhttps://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/the-death-and-life-of-great-american-cities/Fri, 04 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/the-death-and-life-of-great-american-cities/Does a great job trashing standard dogmas, but felt like it introduces new dogmas in their place. I kept hoping for some objective way to measure singlehttps://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/the-mote-in-gods-eye-moties-%231/Thu, 15 Nov 2018 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/the-mote-in-gods-eye-moties-%231/Two 70’s Sci-fi writers discover a species hitherto unknown to man, a species so fascinating that they struggle immensely to describe these creatures inhttps://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/annihilation-southern-reach-%231/Tue, 24 Jul 2018 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/annihilation-southern-reach-%231/2026: OH MY GOD IT'S AN ALLEGORY FOR HUMANITY'S FIRST CONTACT WITH AI Original read: 2018 I.... didn't get it. Maybe I'll like the movie better?https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/how-to-get-filthy-rich-in-rising-asia/Tue, 17 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/how-to-get-filthy-rich-in-rising-asia/A dishonest book in every way, but not bad.https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/little-brother-little-brother-%231/Sun, 03 May 2015 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/little-brother-little-brother-%231/Fun, but squarely in the uncanny valley between fiction and non fiction. Taken as a collection of short vignettes, it was entertaining. However, thehttps://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/a-storm-of-swords-a-song-of-ice-and-fire-%233/Sun, 20 Apr 2014 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/a-storm-of-swords-a-song-of-ice-and-fire-%233/I made the mistake of starting season 4 before all the episodes were out, then realized that I could just continue with the books. No more productivityhttps://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/catching-fire-the-hunger-games-%232/Thu, 01 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/catching-fire-the-hunger-games-%232/还行吧。我觉得这本书的语言水平适合我，但是我们为什么需要等到最后一部才看饥饿游戏的事件呢？https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/the-road/Mon, 01 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/the-road/Growing up with a father who constantly believed that civilization was going to end, post apocalyptic books hold a special draw to me. So after watchinghttps://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/atlas-shrugged/Sun, 01 Jan 2006 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/atlas-shrugged/Seriously, Ayn Rand needed an editor. We get to watch an interesting struggle take place in the first 300 pages, only to watch it repeated three morehttps://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/the-host-the-host-%231/Sun, 01 Jan 2006 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/the-host-the-host-%231/I couldn't help be reminded of the Animorphs series that I read in elementary school. Too many aspects were the same, if only expanded to fill the 600